POPE FRANCIS/TRUMP PEOPLE/SEAN SPICER: “The most visible moment for White House press secretary Sean Spicer on President Donald Trump’s first foreign trip this week was a moment of invisibility.
Spicer fumed to colleagues after being excluded from the President’s meeting with Pope Francis, an administration official told CNN on Thursday [5-25-17]. He was eagerly anticipating meeting the Pope, but discovered at the last minute that he was not on the shortlist of White House officials selected to join the President for the private audience.
Spicer assumed he would be on the list, the official said, adding that meeting the Pope was one of the bucket list items Spicer, a Catholic, wanted to check off during his tenure as press secretary.
The presidential snub raised fresh questions Thursday about Spicer’s standing as the chief White House spokesman.
The meeting here at Vatican City placed the ever-shifting pecking order of a tumultuous White House on full display.”
-Kevin Liptak, Jeff Zeleny, and Jeremy Diamond, “Spicer’s absence in papal visit reveals Trump’s family-first rule,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, May 25, 2017 7:37am